NUA Animation & Film Graduate Show

Last week, the Outline film team was lucky enough to be invited to a preview screening of a selection of work by students from NUA’s BA (Hons) Animation and BA (Hons) Film and Moving Image courses, Class of 2016, which was convivially hosted at Norwich’s delightful Cinema City. Never ones to pass up on free booze and films, Smiley and I seized the opportunity to sample these future Kubricks and Miyazakis with both hands, and, following one or four pre-presentation snifters in the heaving courtyard, took our seats in Screen 1.

This isn’t our first rodeo. Smiley and I have seen lot of student films (we’ve even been in a couple), and have found that what they sometimes lack in execution, they make up for in passion and enthusiasm. Also, in many cases, a student film represents the last time a filmmaker can produce something completely unbound by commercial considerations or brief. So, what we expected to see was a mixed bag – some rough diamonds and a few duds. However, what we actually saw was an hour or so of technical excellence and brilliant storytelling. What we certainly didn’t expect to see were films that would make us laugh out loud. Nor did we expect to see a film that would move us close to tears, or to see a short documentary that we would still be talking about hours later. But more of these later.

Of the 19 films we saw, not one could, by anyone’s standards, be called a dud, and the overall quality of the work was hugely impressive. This is, owing to the collaborative way in which the pieces were made, a general reflection of the talent and hard work of the all the students on these courses and, as such, makes it a little unfair to single out particular works for praise. Seriously, every student involved in these films should be extremely proud of themselves, and every one of them has a bright future in their chosen discipline. However, some of the work here was just SO good that to not namecheck it would be criminal.

All the animations, most of which were shorter than two minutes, had a difficult job to do in both showcasing the animator’s prowess in a very short time, and doing so in a coherent, story-driven way. They all succeeded, too, with our personal favourites being the dark and brooding La Llorona, a CGI driven retelling of a Mexican folk tale with a chilling blink-and-you’ll-miss-it twist, and Planets, in which the bodies of the solar system were anthropomorphised with hilarious and educational results. There were laughs aplenty too for Why Do You Do That, You’re a Footballer!, an animated accompaniment to a real-life conversation between two boys discussing why their heroes have to advertise pants. The minute or so we spent with Luna the cat was delightful, too, and the Aardman-tinged I Could Do Things They Couldn’t Do was just wonderful.

The live-action filmmakers had a little more time to play with, with all these pieces clocking in at between seven and eight minutes. So, while that gave them more scope to explore their ideas, it also gave them more time to meander and lose our interest. Thankfully, none did. The six longer films were all unique, innovative, and hugely impressive. Charlotte Phelan’s ambitious Fanny Robin used exemplary costume design and a command of location and composition to produce an authentic and moving period piece, while Alice Cunningham’s pulsing, drug-addled Centurion evoked 90’s rave culture to frame an economically told story of love and life. We really enjoyed The Fat, Dumb Menace, too. Comedy is very difficult to do well, but some excellent committed performances and a gloriously silly script showed that director Joe Torbati has the Edgar Wright stuff. Liam ‘O Neil’s Embryo was the most experimental and ambitious of the films presented, and was all the better for it. This surreal, hallucinatory exploration of grief was right up our collective alley, calling to mind the work of Shane Carruth.